lighted, the dead bodies were removed, the wounded were attended to, and then we all fell fast asleep, but not till Xaramillo, that imperturbable musician, had tuned his mandoline, and given the company a short serenade. Next morning, at five o'clock, the sky was calm, and some disturbances of the soil and of the rocks were all that remained to show that there had been an earthquake. We resumed our march. About eight o'clock, a singular personage, whose garments gave one no distinct idea either of the race to which he belonged, or of his usual occupation, was seen behind some trees and disappeared. It is Watchinango!' cried Cornejo; 'would M. Gerbier like us to follow him? He is gone away in the direction of Goyava, between the Boca Grande and the Bahia.''Just so,' was the reply; 'let us advance, then, at a gallop.' On this the whole troop gallopped off. I had had time to observe minutely the person to whom they gave so odd a name, and whom they now so hotly pursued. He was dressed in the strangest fashion imaginable, with a Spanish woman's mantle, and yellow silk breeches, feet and arms bare, two epaulettes by way of ornament on his naked shoulders, and on his head a magnificent plume of paroquet's feathers. His language, as I learned afterwards, was a strange sort of Spanish, softened with an infusion of the sounds of the Indian tongue, and modified with perfectly original turns of expression. A Catalonian dagger, and an American bowie-knife, held in their places by a small girdle, made of tree-bark, which compressed his waist, and kept up his yellow satin small-clothes, formed a contrast with the green ribbons and blue rosettes, borrowed doubtless from some woman's cast-off wardrobe, with which he had taken it into his head to bedeck himself. Poor Watchinango! it is to him, as it will be seen, that I owe my fortune. Without his thirty thousand dollars, I know not how my life would have turned out. With what remained of that sum, I bought, at a dollar an acre, those territories in Wisconsin, which I sold again at so high a profit, and where six towns have been built, since 1815. But let us proceed. After half-an-hour's gallop, M. Gerbier ordered a halt, and bade Xaramillo follow alone a forest path, bordering a high knoll whence he could easily trace Watchinango's movements, and return to head-quarters with the result of his observations. Accordingly we halted, and I inquired of our host what all this meant. "This Watchinango,' said he, 'is a Mexican of Indian blood, who very seldom allows himself to be seen, and, in the popular opinion, is in possession of a mine of gold, which he conceals from everybody. This notion has arisen thus. He used to come and go as the humour took him, from Yucatan to the coasts of Cuba, and was much liked on account of his gentle disposition; he was always observed to kneel as a Christian before the Virgin del Cobre, an altar which you know is frequented by devout pilgrims. Two years ago he arrived at San Yago, with a small parcel which he undid, when its contents were found to consist of gold, in rudely formed ingots, which he offered for sale, and which were, in fact, bought at a very low price. But how came he to be possessed of this gold? This set all men's fancies to work. The Indian was followed to the seashore, was observed to embark in a canoe, and then was lost sight of among the rocks. Some weeks after this, he re-appeared in a small village, and at a great distance from San Yago, and played the same part over again. The Havannah people, one of whose favourite ideas is that their island lies on a bed of gold, which has not yet been worked, dream about the most lucrative speculations; accordingly, above a hundred persons spread themselves through the woods, and along the shores, with pick-axe and hammer in hand, breaking off bits of all the rocks they met with, and all in hopes of discovering Watchinango's famous gold mine.' 'Well now,' said M. Gerbier to Xaramillo, as he came back panting, and out of breath, 'what news do you bring? -Why,' said he, he is sitting near a cavity, formed by the rocks of the Boca Grande. Let us go forward quietly, pass round the banana-tree wood, and we shall easily sur prise him in his hiding-place.'-'Very well,' said M. Gerbier, let us push on then gently.' Xaramillo's plan was excellent. Our leading horses were but a few yards from the Indian as he lay asleep between two rocks, under an old tree, when he awoke at the sound of the horses as they came up. Starting to his feet, after a moment's hesitation at seeing us so numerous and well mounted, he threw himself head foremost into a sort of funnel or crevice, eight or ten feet wide, and disappeared. The eagerness of our pursuit increased every moment. All of us dismounted, and almost every head was turned at once to the interior of the dark cavern, in the depths of which, Watchinango, like another Curtius, had vanished, No light of any kind was visible, but ere long a musket or fowling-piece was fired, and poor Cornejo was killed on the spot. At this, as may well be believed, the assailants became furious. A council of war was held, all pistols were loaded, and with the exception of M. Gerbier and myself, all formed a circle round the cave's mouth, from which fresh shots were discharged, but without touching any body. On this all the fowling-piece and pistol barrels were pointed at once into the cave's mouth, and more than a score of balls discharged into it. A shrill scream was then heard to issue from the black yawning cavern, immediately followed by a new detonation accompanied with two balls, which passed between my legs, and struck one of our horses on the head. The gold hunters recoiled; there was manifestly no small danger in proceeding. Nevertheless, irritated and exasperated by resistance, and deeming that spoils thus defended must be worth the pains of a desperate pursuit, they threw bundles of blazing brushwood into the chasm, thinking that the smoke would compel the garrison who defended it to surrender at discretion. Watchinango's only reply was by a double shot, which took effect at the same instant on two of the assailants, a negro and a Spaniard, who were both leaning over the mouth of the cavern. The two wounded men were removed bleeding profusely, the one struck in the leg, the other in the chest, which last shot caused almost instant death. Not a sound was now to be heard. In mournful silence the assailants now cautiously approached; then, bending the torches they had lighted into the gloomy opening, they discovered a singular spectacle, rather resembling some opera scenery than a natural grotto. The torches flickered on fantastically shaped columns and pilasters of mica quartz, of various sizes, reflecting the light from ten thousand natural mirrors, resembling the facettes of a prism. A large carpet was suspended across a kind of alcove, so as to form a closet apart. On the other side there was a forge, the fire of which was out, and the instruments belonging to it were scattered over the rude uneven floor; three or four steps rudely cut in the quartz led to this forge. Objects of luxury, Spanish sabres, and American pistols were hung up here and there; a large Mexican hammock made of stained bark, and lined with feathers, swung to and fro on the right, in the wind, which seemed to enter by some distant inlet. That inlet was no other than that which connected the cave with the lake De los Cabellones; and in a recess, stretched on a Mexican mat, we soon perceived a young woman. Into this strange abode we contrived, by means of cords and poles, to find our way at last. The young woman raised herself languidly, and showed us where she had been hit in the forearm, by a ball from the Spaniards. The ball had passed through the flesh and wounded the muscles, but no bone was fractured. We now recognised the naiad who had so charmed us, the Ondine of the lake of the Cabellones. The particular traits by which she was distinguished were those of the Peruvian race-a large bust and extremely supple person. A forest of black hair fell in profusion over her shoulders. Her dress was very simple, in remarkably good taste, and not unlike that of Spanish Mulatto women; a petticoat of black and yellow stripes was bound about her waist; a small yellow gauze handkerchief was tied about her neck; besides which she had glass-bead necklaces, and other ornaments of various colours. Her eyes, which were magnificent, shed a flood of tears. At her feet lay stretched a tall well made man, whose hand still grasped a horse-pistol, and the reddish brown hue of whose skin betrayed his Indian origin. We raised him, but life was extinct. M. Gerbier discovered, under a kind of trap-door, the source of Watchinango's wealth. It was an old treasure of the bucaniers, consisting of roughly fused ingots, which Watchinango had discovered in his roving expeditions. When he needed coined money he exchanged this bullion for it. M. Gerbier conveyed to his own house, and carefully tended the young woman, who was Watchinango's daughter, by a Spanish wife, a Christian like himself, and to this daughter the half of her father's treasure was secured as a dowry. chapter of Advice to Husbands,' 'Hints to Fathers,' Whispers to newly made Benedicts!' We are preached to, talked to, written to-here a little, and there a good deal. We are exhorted to be submissive, 'sober-minded, patient, long-suffering, enduring all things.' We are expected to equal Moses in meekness, Job in patience, Solomon in wisdom, David in goodness, and Samson in strength; we are to meet our husbands with an everlasting smile; we are to take from his burdenssoothe his troubled spirits. No matter if our own shoulders are already over-laden with our tasks; no matter if our spirits are weary; the words cross and dumpish are not allowed in a wife's glossary; these are the husband's especial prerogative. If Mr Surly comes home in the sulks, a fit of the We spent another fortnight with the reclaimed pirate, pouts is denied his poor wife. He may kick the dog, box and in the society of Seraphita, who no longer gave me Johnnie's ears, snap at Mrs Surly herself, yet she is exany uneasiness, and of Watchinango's daughter. The ex-pected to keep calm, and pour oil on the troubled waters. ceeding beauty of the wounded maiden deeply impressed If there was a 'better' and 'worse' stipulated for in the both O'Neil and myself, so that we were on the point of marriage contract, she must remember that her husband having a quarrel of a singular kind, by both pretending expects to monopolise the better, while the worse is to fall to her heart and hand. to her share. The preference of the young Teresa Wahminga, a name which signifies golden partridge, was decided in my favour, and, at the altar of Trinidad, I became lord at once of her hand and of the ingots of the bucaniers. It was, indeed, the most singular dowry that a bride could well bring to her bridegroom. Watchinango's ingots, when converted into cash, brought me near thirty thousand dollars, of which about a third sufficed for our passage, the arrangements for which were undertaken by our host, while the remaining two-thirds formed a capital, which I did not allow to lie useless in my hands. There is Mr Fairface, Mr Editor, I wonder if you have ever seen him? One of the smoothest, politest, most agreeable men in the world; has a smile for everybody: a travelling streak of sunshine is Mr Fairface! Only see him as he is going home-how gracefully he bends to this and that fair lady of his acquaintance; but see him as he nears his own door-the smile turns to a sneer, his face elongates, blackness gathers upon his brow, and by the time he lifts the door-latch you would hardly believe him the same man. Enter the little back parlour. There sits Mrs Fairface with a half-dozen Fairfaces around her. Willie wants a new string to his kite; Sarah's pantalette is off; Jack's face is daubed with apple-pie and must be washed; Mary is out of temper, and must be punished; and little Minnie, the youngest Fairface, is worrying in her mother's lap, experiencing the untold agonies of teeth-cutting. Like Shakspeare's Romeo, I began my Havannese drama with love at heart, and brought it to a close more seriously, and more gaily, by carrying off and marrying another heroine. Further, Watchinango's daughter, by her unaffected beauty, her charming character, and intelligent vivacity, was fully equal to Shakspeare's heroine, Poor woman! who will say that her task is an easy one and the naiad of the lake Los Caballones proved one of the—to curb the headstrong, rouse the stupid, lend courage most devoted and amiable of wives. She learned to read to the timid; and blend all these different spirits into uniand speak Spanish and English with great purity; but versal harmony? Does she not deserve a kind and enwhat she never learned, notwithstanding her long resi- couraging word from her husband? But does she always dence in North America, Europe, and the Antilles, was receive it? No; for there are too many men, who, like the art of writing. She held a pen in abhorrence; but, Mr Fairface, give their sunshine to the world and reserve to compensate for this, her musical instinct, which was the cloud for their own hearthstones. remarkably developed, made her an excellent singer; and she possessed a rare sagacity, and good sense. I confess that I hardly ever regretted finding her so little of a learned woman, and so little of a blue. WOMAN AND HER ADVISERS. THE Yankees are said to be a dollar-hunting people-a race who, if they understand any science, assuredly understand that which is the more especial object of their purauit, namely, mineralogy in the particular phenomena which were observed in Ophir of old, in the mines of Potosi, and in the auriferous formations of the Urals, and elsewhere. They do know a good deal about gold, that's a fact,' as Sam Slick, the great horological philosopher, says, but they have also pretty considerably explored the deep mines of human natur' and social life, and sometimes say things that Socrates never thought of. The following, from some sage Cornelia, we transcribe from the columns of the Boston Journal,' with much pleasure, recommending its careful study to every individual of the male sex, who supposes he has a blood relation of Mrs Caudle's in his household. 'One would think that we women were something more than minor considerations in this world of ours, by the time and talent that is expended for our improvement. Every newspaper, pamphlet, and magazine is teeming with Advice to Wives, Hints to Mothers,' Whispers to Brides, A Daughter's Influence,' &c., &c. Now, would it not be well for some benevolent genius to turn his attention to the sterner sex? Let us, just for variety, have a I do not object to many things that are said and written to have women learn their duty, and do it. I would have her always gentle and kind; I would have her honour and respect her husband; but I would have him appreciate in some degree the affectionate care which anticipates his wants; I would have him forbearing and gentle to her. Be gentle for ve little know Although to thee they may be small, Be gentle though perchance that lip Be gentle weary hours of pain Then yield her what support thou canst, Be gentle for the noblest heart Be gentle! none are perfect here; Then, husband, bear, and still forbear- Woman's life is made up of petty trials more wearying than heavy sorrows. I acknowledge that too many of the girls of the present day are totally unfit for the re sponsible station they are to occupy-that of wife and mother. But if a man has rushed heedlessly into matrimony, without examining critically the character and habits of the lady of his choice-to see if she will be a useful as well as a companionable wife-then, I say, let him bear patiently with her folly and ignorance. Woman is just what man makes her. Show her that you admire usefulness more than tinsel-that you esteem beauty of mind more than personal beauty-and take my word for it she will so educate herself as to be worthy your respect and affection.' ORIGINAL POETRY. TO MY BOOKS. Time, ruthless time, no quarter gives! I gaze on you with wrinkled brow- We are not what we once have been! Ye were the friends of other years; The worm its canker may impart, To point a moral' to the wise Who let not sin corrode the heart, And he who to this lore attends, Mine were ye, when, with youthful step, The loss of youth and strength in vain. WILLIAM THOM. WILLIAM THOM is dead. The weaver-poet's harp-strings are mute for ever, and the flowers of his own loved land are weeping over his lowly grave. The spring comes smiling down the Vale of Dee, scattering blossoms on its verdant wold, and the sunbeams awaken the plumed choristers to greet her approach with songs; but these blossoms now are funereal tributes to the bard, who shall see them no more for ever, and the birds sing a requiem to him who so often mingled his joyous voice with theirs. He is dead; well, his pilgrimage here below has been a sad and striking commentary on life. His probation in this lower world has been a continued combat between the real and ideal-between the wants of the body and the aspirations of the soul. Poverty iron-bound and rivetted him down to his treddles, and, by the power of its gravitation, even weighed him below them, while poetry would have him out among the beauties and sublimities of nature, and raise him up to heaven, until at last, to consummate the strife of that ill-sorted alliance, genius and extreme poverty, death dissolved the union, restoring to Him who gave it the immortal soul, and resigning to the cold earth the mortal tegument which had been its dwellingplace for a while. William Thom's life and history are not singular in Britain. Poverty, and noble struggles to surmount or battle with it, form parts of the domestic heroism of almost every British labourer's lot. As another noble bard of poverty has exclaimed, from the depths of his experience'To suffer is our legacy-the portion of the poor.' Thom verified this fact in all its intensity, and he might have died without the world knowing of his struggles had he not written and published poetry. William Thom was born in Aberdeen towards the close of 1799 or beginning of 1800, and was placed in a factory at the age of ten years. He was the son of a poor widow, who could bestow upon him the abundance of her love, but who could neither give him bread nor education, and so the little lame boy was constrained at this age to toil. After four years' apprenticeship, he entered the weaving establishment of Messrs Gordon, Barron, & Co., where he continued seventeen years, until, from a vague idea of bettertering his condition, he removed to the village of Newtyle, near Cupar-Angus, in Forfarshire. In 1837, the failure of certain great commercial establishments in America silenced upwards of six thousand looms in Dundee and the surrounding villages, and William Thom's amongst the rest: and then the gloom and grief of penury, and care, and sorrow, and the deep degradation of beggary, curtained his fate, and preyed upon his heart. No hand should attempt to transcribe his sorrows after his own vivid pictures; his 'Recollections' may be read in the beginning of his poems published in 1845; he who has read them will never forget them, he who has not read them should. They are harrowing pictures, full of the electricity of grief, but as distinct and palpable as life; they are painfully true, and are alas not individual but generic. After feeling what it was to lose a child by death, while he wandered his native land a houseless man, willing to toil, and drawing his only subsistence, like poor Goldsmith, from his flute, he returned to Aberdeen, glad to find employment at six shillings a-week. From Aberdeen he proceeded to Inverury, where he obtained 'customer-work,' weaving for seven or eight months in the year, thereby winning ten and twelve shillings a-week, and starving during the remainder of the season. Yet Thom called this the bright spot of his life, and pathetically mourned that his wife, who died in November 1840, was not permitted to share its joys. It was in Inverury that his poetical talent chiefly developed itself. He spoke in his sorrow, and the voice was beautiful, for it was natural-it was true. His pieces (first published in the Aberdeen Herald) attracted the notice of Gordon of Knockespock, and by his means sunshine at last entered the lowly home of the weaver-poet. In 1841, Thom, by the kindness of Knockespock, visited London, where he was introduced to Allan Cunningham, and many of the master-minds of the great metropolis. His hopes, perhaps indefinite at first, had not found any specific answer; for he returned to Scotland and his loom again, but not to the cheerless poverty of his former lot. After this return he again married; and in 1845 we find him once more in London, rendered famous by a stroke of Douglas Jerrold's pen, and publicly feasted at the Crown and Anchor. Again, however, disappointment dimmed his aspirations, and he returned to Hawkhill, near Dundee. Before he bade a final adieu to England, he penned the following fine verses, then turned his watery e'e' and footsteps to his 'ain bonny North:' FAREWELL TO LONDON. I'm sick o' this Babel, sae heartless an' cauld- I fain would be hame-I would fain be alane-- For better I lo'e to be crooning a sang By the blithe chimley cheek wi' the friends o' my heartWhiles blawing a cloud, an' whiles blawing a note, As the cutty or flute comes first in my thought. I'll no be a lion for ennuied rank I winna be trotted, or roar any more; I scorn Mr Pelf as he rolls to his bank- I ne'er see the sun in this dull foggy toun, Though I whiles get a glimpse o' the calm leddy-meen,' Round Punch's guffawing but sovereign board! And farewell, Knockespock, my patron and chief— My heart-strings may crack, but I'll get nae relief As the green velvet banks where my dear river flows? Then, hynet o'er the water, for now I'm awa', And before he bade a last farewell to his harp, he thrilled it with the following sympathetic song, and then laid it down for ever: A SONG OF THE DWELLERS IN DEAN VALE. May we never forget that the sun has set For, oh it may be that this chill night wind Then aye as we sing may we closer cling Man was not made for the world alone, 'Tis a debt we owe to heaven, you know ;- Now winter rides mad in his carriage of snow, Then aye as we sing may we closer cling His poetry is full of beauty and pathos; it is smooth as a glassy stream, and as pure as dew. The following, to our mind, is an exquisitely sweet song, full of truth and tenderness: TO MARY. Oh, Mary! when you think of me, My heart, oh, Mary! own'd but thee, No, Mary! mark yon reckless shower! The hand that harped these beautiful stanzas is cold; the mountain-echoes shall never thrill responsive to his songs of sorrow any more; the fountain of his griefs shall never again brim over with its fullness of tears: but he has left poetic links by which to bind men's hearts to his memory, and he has left those of his blood and name who shall lament him through many changing years. His 'Jeanie,' like Burns's Highland Mary, preceded him to the narrow tomb, but he has left a widow behind him, like Burns's Jean, and three little children, as helpless as was the family of his great minstrel progenitor. His widow has been left literally penniless; the eldest of his young children is four years of age, the youngest only three months. The world has been accused of neglecting genius-of refusing it a crust of bread while living, and raising a monumental stone over it when dead. This is a cry which we will not reiterate, because we do not believe it to be literally true. The world is not such a callous, whinstonehearted being as it is cried down to be. Let it know where genius is suffering, and it will stretch out its hand to ease his cares, and send its warm sympathies to soothe his sorrows; but when it only knows of the struggles of its noblest sons after they have sunk under them, what can it do more than pour its sorrows over their dust? In this instance, however, it can do as has been done in many other memorable instances-it can soften the sorrows and lighten the poverty of Thom's dependents, who, whatever the world may now say regarding the departed poet, ought not to be sufferers from his failings, and are, at least, the heirs of his fame and the world's better sympathies. A committee has been formed of active and philanthropic gentlemen, who are endeavouring to rescue the widow and family of William Thom from their necessitous condition. The Provost of Dundee is chairman, and the Rev. George Gilfillan is an acting member, of this committee. The funds placed at the committee's disposal shall be placed in the Savings Bank, and alimented to the deceased poet's family, under the supervision of the committee. Subscriptions to this benevolent fund will be received by Mr P. Watson, merchant, High Street, Dundee, and we shall gladly transmit to the treasurer any sums that may be sent to our care. We are confident that this appeal will not be made in vain. No one who has read the sweet and beautiful effusions of Thom but must feel his heart melt over the prospects of his family, and his purse-strings will assuredly open with his expanding sympathies. Death, alas! has been busy among our minor poets of late. Peter Still, who was so lately rescued from a poverty which was as nobly supported as was the physical incapacity which deepened it, has just died. He, too, has gone away of his poverty depart with the last winter of his life; and, when the spring-flowers were flushing. He saw the winter like William Thom, he too now sleeps the sleep that knows no breaking. Peace to their memories! ECHOES FROM THE JAIL. THE whole period of human life may be divided into three cycles, each cycle containing its phases or stages. It may be viewed as a hemisphere, having the zones of sunny youth, temperate manhood, and hoary senility, and each invested with some peculiar attribute, essential to, and in harmony with its state. These successive stages of life are marked by an arbitrary arrangement, just as a map is. Youth merges in manhood, and manhood in age, at periods which cannot be precisely indicated; the child blends in the adolescent, and the adolescent in the aged man, and the gradations of transition are so silent that they cannot be observed. The first period, or that of youth, is essentially one of tutelage; it is the time when the human capacity is being acted upon and formed, by the plastic hand of tuition, either for good or evil. The young embryo mind, so lately sent from heaven, is like a sheet of pure sensatised paper, lying open, in its guileless innocence, for the inscriptions, which are to be the future elements of its reflections and its impulses. Our youthful days are the days of instruction. We learn then from everything. The flowers educate our smiles; the songs of birds, and the sunbeams, which scatter their showers of gold upon the daisies of the meadow, and cause the murmuring streams to sparkle in their golden radiance, teach us that we have sympathies, and lead them forth. The gestures of our companions, the words of casual passers-by, the teachings of our parents and guardians all the elements of education are more or less brought to a focus on the youthful mind, moulding it, and impress-producer of many tears-the breaker of many hearts— ing it for its aspect of manhood. Manhood is the period of action-the time when we apply the precepts of childhood to the purposes of life. It is the meridian of the cycle of mortality, when thought and labour divide the whole man, and the former begins gradually to supervene the latter. Impulse has yielded to reason by this time, and deeds are the regulated results of thoughts. Age, again, is the meet period of instruction. There is nothing that so dignifies and exalts senility as the position of educator. Man has then passed through the more active stages of life; he has ceased to rush blindly on his path, as he was wont to do in youth, and the attrition which he has undergone in his passage through the competitive struggles of manhood, has smoothed his spirit and his manners. The aged man, who is drawing near to his resting-place, has little practical use for much of the instruction which he acquired in youth. He has discovered the futility of many things that were taught him, and has added his experience to strengthen and adorn others. He is growing riper for the home of immortality, to which his aged eye is brightening; thither he cannot carry his mortal frame, and he will yield it to the earth from whence it came; the experiences of human life he will bear away with him, but as the world requires them, and heaven knows no selfishness, he will leave a rescript of them to posterity, in requital of what his progenitors gave of knowledge to him. manity by the exercise of the law, or if the acts of such an one were only visited upon himself in the punishment, I would not have been tempted to pen these records for the eyes of those who are hastening to the active stages of the world's highway; but my aim is in some degree to operate upon the sympathies of the young and generous for good, and to show that one crime, upon account of the circumstances of kindred, and the law of sympathy, is the and the source of pain and agony, that are not borne over the seas with the felon, but lie corroding in the breasts of fathers, mothers, and kindred, until their hearts, full to repletion with wo, care, and shame, break, and cease to feel. Prison life abstractly would furnish almost nothing to interest the lover of narrative or the moral economist. One day's routine is an index of what goes on always, unless the old formula is changed for another by legislative enactment, and then it too becomes a system. It is from his connection with the world without that the criminal becomes an object of deep interest. Every human being has some relations from which a prison-walls cannot separate him-some affection that cannot be torn from him, however vile he may be. Such is, we might almost say, the infatuacy of love, that an object which it has originally cherished for his virtues, it clings to in all the singleness and strength of disinterestedness, even when he falls to vice; this I have often seen. Áb, if young men only knew-if they could only see reflected before them the consequences of one folly, not to themselves, but to those who love them, they would surely pause and tremble lest they should step for a moment aside, and cause one pang to bosoms from which even their follies and their crimes cannot part them! The massive doors of jail were opened to me when I pleased to visit it, and as I pleased to do so very frequently, although each visit was productive of sadness and pain, I was looked upon in some degree as an associate by the taciturn, stern-looking officials, and treated with as much openness as men of their character and in their condition could be expected to show. I do not know whether they sympathised with me or not; perhaps they smiled at my mission, which was one of persuasion and appeal, as they compared its visible effects with those of bolts and bars. They admitted me to the cells, however, with all apparent goodwill, and they never scrupled to converse with me regarding the inmates of these dreary abodes that were so frequently changing their tenants. 'Well, Mr Barr,' said I to a turnkey, as I passed him on his accustomed bench, how is Harrington this morning?' Why, he's marked for the third batch,' said the jailer, coolly raising his eyes from the Newgate Calendar,' which he was studying, 'and,' he continued, he goes at two P.M.' Having passed through the former stages, then, I have dared to assume the position of a teacher. I have been young, and I know what it is to tremble between an evil impulse and a better thought; I know what it is to be swayed by minds to which dependent childhood intuitively yields reverence; I have seen the years of manhood, and have resolved the precepts of my youth into the principles of my riper years; I have seen, I have sympathised, and I have suffered; and now I propose to paint, to the young particularly, a few of the experiences of my life, in order that they may learn to avoid the hidden rocks that lie beneath the placid surface of pleasure, and to combat with the seductive influences of desire, and the dangers of a pliant disposition. .I may premise that I have never been vicious. I make this explanation, lest it may be supposed that mine are the practical experiences of a felon, who only becomes didactic when he can no longer rob-who preys upon the lives and property of men when free, but who preaches when he becomes manacled, fettered, and imprisoned. The instructions of the condemned criminal, even when seemingly of the most earnest character, ought always to be received with caution, if not with doubt. Truth does not germinate in depravity, and therefore it is not from the higher motives that even the best of criminals indite those badly-spelt doggrels that are hawked about the streets. Troubled and polluted springs cannot afford a hallowed stream; the virtuous alone are truly competent to rear the young in virtue, or to gracefully impart to youth the precepts of truth. I have often crossed the threshold of the jail; I have listened to the clanking 'Well, now,' said Barr, emphatically, he might have of its keys, the creak of its doors, and the echoing foot- knowed better. He was not like one on them kinchins steps of its officials, as they paced along its high-walled that are brought up to this, and are better here than out. narrow passages; I have conversed with its inmates He got edication, and I should like to know what use of all grades, from the child who was being initiated edication is for, if it don't teach a fellow to keep beyond in crime, to the reprobate who was petrified in incorrigible them walls. I said the case was a good un,' he continued, vice; I have become in some respects the friend of those pursing up his mouth, and looking infinitely satisfied. poor criminals-the repository of their better thoughts-Gobby and I were a-talking over it, and we came to the the medium of communication between them and a world conclusion that the judge that didn't see this case wasn't which had cut them off from its communion; I have been, fit for his situation." too, their sympathiser, and their teacher. "The appeals of his friends have been unsuccessful, then,' said I, with a portion of the sadness of my feelings trembling in my voice, and the representations of Mr Morton have availed him nothing?' 'You see, sir,' said Barr, who was a large, stout man, with a broad face and low forehead, beneath which dull, leaden-like eyes twinkled from the shade of bushy, dark eyebrows-you see, sir, the case was a good un; and the jailer roused himself up, laid aside his book, and seemed preparing himself for a discussion. 'Poor fellow!' said I, involuntarily. 'He is young, respectably connected, and this is his If a criminal could be completely dissociated from hu- first crime,' said I, in a deprecating voice. |